Looking at Overclockers, Nvidia cards are running out and there seems to be no cheap alternatives that are substantially better than my 9600GT, however there are loads of ATI cards.
I haven't tested this but my understanding is generally Nvidia outperforms ATi in FSX. However that didn't stop me from purchasing a Radeon 5770 1gb because it runs other applications extremely well (Dirt 2 maxed out 1920*1080, Bad Company 2 maxed out 1920*1080). However the transition from 8800GT 512mb (slightly faster than 9600GT) to 5770 in FSX was not huge. Since my processor is well over twice as fast as yours, I seriously doubt going from 9600GT to 5770 (or 4870) will make much of a difference on your system because FSX is CPU limited.
Pretty much the only graphics cards that I look into are those which are upper midrange and higher so the only cards I can really recommend are the Radeon 4870 which is often really cheap at the moment (uses lots of power, check if your power supply can run it), the Radeon 5770 (as fast as 4870 but uses much less power, is direct x 11, but more expensive), GTS 250 (slower than 4870, but cheaper), Radeib 5750 (same as GTS 250) and GTX 260 (same speed as 4870 / 5770). All should be huge steps up from the 9600GT in most applications but again, I doubt it would make a huge difference in FSX. In my opinion get GTX 260 as it's Nvidia followed by 5770 / 4870 then GTS 250 / 5750, but of course that all depends on availability and price. Radeon 5850 is great but I think that's overkill for your processor.
IMO the biggest upgrade you can make for fsx is a significantly faster processor, then think about getting a new Nvidia card when those come out (the GTX 460 and its variants), which are anticipated to be the next 8800GT (really good card in its heyday). If you want to upgrade for other games then a new videocard is a good idea, like the ones I mentioned above, but in many applications going to need a faster processor to take full advantage of it. Bad Company 2, for example, LOVES quad cores. If your motherboard is AM2+ then you can probably take advantage of a cheap quad core, or a fast dual.
Also DDR2 is expensive because it's being phased out. Sometimes old technologies up in price.... I wanted more RAM a while ago so I just bought it second hand for less than half price.... 2 gigabytes of high-end DDR2-800 for 28 pounds which I just added to what was then my current RAM so now I have total of 4gb...
basically: new processor mainly for fsx, new videocard mainly for everything else.
[quote]So I understand switching from Nvidia to ATI requires formating HDD and configuring drivers etc, is it worth it or should I wait a little longer until OcUK get some more stock in or the newer cards become outdated?
Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:58 pm
...!
....!
